FF: Rise of the Silver Surfer

Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer is probably a good movie if your under the age of 10. For every other age group, director Tim Story and his crew have managed to craft another Fantastic Four movie which cements the deserved label of FF being the lamest superhero franchise in film existence. This is a lazy piece of work and if there was ever a comic book adaptation that was translated straight from a 30 minute Saturday morning cartoon then this is it. FF 2 feels like "just another episode" in terms of character development and plot but you can't get away with that in a film. These characters aren't back for us to watch next week, we see them once every couple of years. There needs to be more going on in the film for us to care about their plight, this is not a soap opera. My lack of caring for the characters is quite sad really, when the concept of the film is "the end of civilization". With a running time of 92 minutes it's good that the film is short because they don't have to further drag out the story they have created, however it ultimately leads to some of the films biggest downfalls... It means the action is cut short, this is a comic book film where there are two exciting battle scenes and one of them is over before you know it and the other we have already mostly seen from an extended trailer many months back. Cut short is the character development, there's some strong themes hinted at like Johnny's dissension from the group and the theme of putting family first over saving the planet but again it's never fully explored. There's an awful helicopter scene in the film which attempts to resolve all these problems in two seconds, and how do they do this? By Reed (or one of them I can't remember) saying "Shut up, we have work to do". That's how they resolve conflict in this film... bloody marvellous. It also means The Silver Surfer's time is cut short and the most interesting character in the film is criminally under-used. He looks cool and I just wonder how many tickets he sold, and subsequently how many people will be pissed that he is barely utilized. I love the Surfer and he needed a bit more reasoning and a bit more development but it's clear they kept him mysterious so he can get his own movie. Although I have to say when he opens his mouth, that's Morpheus from The Matrix. That was distracting as hell. Galactus was a presence in this movie? That's interesting because I couldn't feel anything. All I saw were a bunch of clouds which just gradually got bigger and bigger. I never felt the planet was in danger once throughout the movie from this big puff of smoke. I once dreamed of a great Fantastic Four movie which would have Johnny and The Silver Surfer flying around and the rest of the FF battling the devour of worlds in one uber long battle sequence but of course we weren't going to get anything like that in this film. Ioan Gruffudd is an actor I enjoy in historical drama's but he's terribly miscast as a leading man in a superhero film, he looks awkward during scenes where he needs to be humorous and weak when he attempts to be the leader. Jessica Alba ruins every scene she is in and her attempt at the power pose is to make herself look constipated. Michael Chiklis is fine as The Thing (although they should have made his story of wanting to be human again a bigger deal) and I actually really like Chris Evans' version of The Human Torch and their buddy comradery in the film is the only success the film has in projecting the much needed FF family unit. I mean after all, does anyone believe that skinny Welsh actor would be banging Jessica Alba? Infact, the sexual tension between Jessica Alba and Chris Evans was more prominent and highly disturbing for characters that are suppose to be brother and sister. They nearly make out twice, they look at each other passionately about three times, Evans calls her "beautiful" like the end scene of a rom-com and I swear Evans checked her body and jugs out when she was wearing that wedding dress. Really disturbing. Julian McMahon as Victor Von Doom? No frikkin' way. He is still as lifeless as he was in the first film but thankfully he is only in the movie two seconds. Again it's that Saturday morning cartoon thing when the Kingpin would be in virtually EVERY episode of Spider-Man even when the story doesn't permit such an appearance. The Fantastic Four had all the potential in the world to be a great superhero film along the lines of Spider-Man and X-Men but an attempt to please the young audience means that these Iconic characters are reduced to being charactertures of their source material.

rating:2

Still, I would say the film was a marked improvement over the original two years ago which was one of my least favourite films of that year. Although in many ways this makes this film more of a disappointment because it's clear their ambitions were on a much larger scale with the plot and the Silver Surfer's appearance. FF 2 is watchable but far from good. Pixar's The Incredibles remains the greatest Fantastic Four film we are ever likely to see.